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HARVEST CRUSADES: Marketing relies on believers to spread the word

Bringing in non-believers in the hopes they’ll accept Jesus as their savior is the chief reason for the crusades; the stickers and other promotional materials are designed to set the stage for Christians to invite a friend, family member or co-worker to the gatherings

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FRIDAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

POP MUSIC: The 28,000 people who attended the first night of this year's Harvest Crusades rocked to the sounds of top Christian artists NEEDTOBREATHE and Phil Wickham.

FORGIVENESS: Pastor Greg Laurie had an on-stage conversation with former mob boss Michael Franzese, who said, "If God can change my heart and my mind and not only change me but forgive my sins ... he can and he will do it for anyone."

REBIRTH: Renee and Ryan Farwell, of Los Alamitos, were at the crusade, in part, to celebrate how they said God gave them their lives back a year ago. "We were into drugs really bad," said Renee Farwell, 53. "We were homeless. We had our daughter taken away. When we got sober, God gave everything back to us, our home, our car, our daughter."

ON GOD: Laurie preached about "the God who loves and forgives." He told non-believers that "you've been walking away from God. Now it's time to walk toward God."

FAMILY AFFAIR: Tom and Michelle Robles, of Hacienda Heights, came down to the outfield at the end of the night with their daughters Betty, 7, and Sarina, 9, after Laurie urged non-believers to accept Jesus as their savior. "I came to bring my daughters to Christ, to invite Christ into their hearts," said Tom Robles, 37.

HARVEST CRUSADES

The event continues through Sunday.

Highlights: Pastor Greg Laurie speaks each night. Top Christian artists such as Skillet, Chris Tomlin and Crystal Lewis will perform.

When: 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; gates open 5:30 p.m.

Where: Angel Stadium in Anaheim

Admission: Free. Angel Stadium parking $15 per car, $30 per bus.

Information: harvest.org/crusades

Even if you’ve never attended one of the Harvest Crusades, you’ve probably seen a bumper sticker advertising the event as you’re driving down the freeway.

The 100,000 bumper stickers and half-million fliers and invitations produced every year and distributed throughout Southern California are part of an extensive and sophisticated promotional effort by the evangelical Christian gathering, which celebrated its 25th year Friday night at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

About 28,000 attended the crusade Friday night, Harvest said. The gatherings, a ministry of Riverside’s Harvest Christian Fellowship that typically attract more than 100,000 people to Angel Stadium each August, continue Saturday and Sunday nights.

The bumper stickers are the most visible sign of the crusades. But Harvest doesn’t expect the stickers in themselves to spur many non-Christians to attend one of the events, although that sometimes happens, said Pastor John Collins, crusades executive director.

Bringing in non-believers in the hopes they’ll accept Jesus as their savior is the chief reason for the crusades; the stickers and other promotional materials primarily are designed to set the stage for Christians to personally invite a friend, family member or co-worker to the gatherings, Collins said.

“We’re promoting the event, giving it some kind of recognition in the community, so that when a believer asks a person to come to the event, they’ll be familiar with it,” he said. “They can say, ‘I’ve seen the bumper stickers.’”

Christians are informed of the crusades through DVDs, posters, fliers and other materials distributed to churches. Pastors make announcements encouraging congregants to invite non-believers.

“There’s a huge relational component here,” Collins said. “It’s getting believers to leverage their relationships to bring people along to the crusades to hear the message of the Gospel.”

That’s been true since the beginning. The template for the promotion strategy came from the Billy Graham Crusades, he said.

“In the first year, we didn’t have the organization they had,” Collins said. “But we stripped it down and made it work for us.”

For this year’s Anaheim gatherings, the crusades will rely on more than 5,000 volunteers, about 10 year-round staff members and about 50 others from Harvest Christian Fellowship who assist with the event as needed.

Over the years, crusade organizers have built up expertise and learned from past mistakes.

For example, the bumper stickers for the first crusades, in 1990, had mixed results. They were fluorescent pink and printed on paper. The paint on the stickers faded within a few days and were difficult to remove.

“By the second year, we learned vinyl is the way to go,” Collins said.

The second bi-annual one day Circuit Assembly program of Jehovah’s Witnesses is set for 9:40 a.m. Saturday, March 7, at the Mira Loma Assembly Hall, located at 3300 Cornerstone Drive, in Jurupa√ Valley.

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